The Heretic’s Handbag: Folk Magic and Survival in Medieval France

What can the contents of a medieval French woman’s handbag tell us about her life, her beliefs and the strange world she inhabited? When she was captured by the Inquisition, Béatrice de Planisolles revealed all the juicy details of her forbidden relationships and folk magic practices, and why one should always carry dried umbilical cords in one's bag. Is Béatrice the Medieval Lorelai Gilmore?? Dr. Eleanor Janega is joined by Katherine Pangonis to discuss this incredibly rare insight into a normal woman's life over a thousand years ago. MORE Christine de Pizan: Pioneering French Feminist Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/id1564113746?i=1000763407636&itscg=30200&ls=1&mttnsubad=6442463604&at=1000l3ctA&itsct=podfollow_podcasts&ct=pf-episode-1564113746 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/3iqr1Qg25yutQ4nkDanZXt Trial of Joan of Arc Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/id1564113746?i=1000737610970&itscg=30200&ls=1&mttnsubad=6442463604&at=1000l3ctA&itsct=podfollow_podcasts&ct=pf-episode-1564113746 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/4m57CME9e4TBKBvWXmsdAs Gone Medieval is presented by Dr Eleanor Janega. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds. Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™ Want even MORE history? Watch Dr. Eleanor Janega's series Meet the Normans now on History Hit TV. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 0:01Matt Lewis?

  From long-lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places, to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Yanega, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on History Hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 0:42Speaker 01

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• 2:27Eleanor Janega?

  Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Yanega, and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gob-smacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes, to the crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were, and how we got here.

• 3:01Eleanor Janega?

  The air in the Inquisitor's stone chamber at Palmyra hung heavy and damp. Jacques Fournier, the bishop of Palmyra and future Pope Benedict XII, presided over a heavy wooden table, his piercing gaze rarely missing a detail. He was feared for conducting the most meticulous and fastidious Inquisition of the Middle Ages. Opposite, sat 46-year-old Beatrice de Plancol, a widow from the Peruvian region of Languedoc in southern France. Between them were strewn the contacts of her bag,

• 3:42Eleanor Janega?

  the raw and intimate evidence of a forbidden life. Fournier leaned forward and prodded a cluster of shriveled leather-like scraps. "And what are these?" he asked. "Those belong to my grandsons," Beatrice replied, her osseton tongue firm and unabashed. "A Jewish woman she'd once met had shared a piece of advice," she explained. "Carrying around the dried umbilical cords of her grandsons would guarantee that she would never lose a lawsuit." With this arming pragmatism, she added that, since no one had ever brought a lawsuit against her,

• 4:24Eleanor Janega?

  she had not yet been able to verify if the charm worked. Swift notes were made before the bishop prodded the next item: rags stiffened with dark, dried stains. And flinching, Beatrice readily admitted that the rags were soaked with her daughter's very first menstrual blood. "She'd been told," she said, "that if she brewed a drink containing this blood for her new son-in-law, the man would never be unfaithful to her daughter." As Fournier's hand moved to a few unassuming morsels of dried, crumbling bread, Beatrice deliberately evaded them, offering no story or explanation.

• 5:06Eleanor Janega?

  The Inquisitor noted her silence with quiet satisfaction. He needed no explanation. He understood what those crumbs represented. Definitive proof of Beatrice's involvement with the forbidden sect known as the Cathars. We only know of Beatrice de Plancol today because of her trial record, now preserved in the Vatican's library. The Inquisitors wrote it down, unvarnished, unornamented. In so doing, and quite unwittingly, these men tasked with rooting out heresy in the Languedoc

• 5:46Eleanor Janega?

  created one of the most remarkable documents of the Middle Ages. Beatrice was no queen, saint, or celebrated martyr. She never commanded an army or changed the course of a kingdom. History would almost certainly have forgotten her completely had Jacques Fournier not decided to investigate what she believed, with whom she had slept, and what she carried in her bag. The trial transcripts were created by men intent on extinguishing heresy, but instead, preserved in astonishing detail, the world they were trying to destroy. Joining me to discuss Beatrice de Plancol

• 6:30Eleanor Janega?

  is historian and author Catherine Pangone, whose recent book, A History of France in 21 Women, recounts the story of Beatrice along with eight score of her compatriots, from Eleanor of Aquitaine and Joan of Arc to Coco Chanel and Brigitte Bardot. We've spoken to Catherine before on Gone Medieval about Christine de Pizan, and it was such a great conversation that we've asked her back today to tell us more about Beatrice de Plancol. Her interrogation by the Inquisition offers an uncommonly vivid, uncensored window into the daily existence, intimate liaisons, folk magic, and religious beliefs of an ordinary medieval woman.

• 7:17Eleanor Janega?

  Well, Catherine, welcome back to Gone Medieval.

• 7:20Speaker 04

  Thank you very much for having me. Happy to be here.

• 7:23Eleanor Janega?

  I'm delighted to finally get you to myself. Matt doesn't get to have all the fun, so this is... And in particular, I'm really excited because today we're going to talk about one of my very, very, very favorite medieval women, who is Beatrice de Plancol. And I think that it's fair to frame her as absolutely wild. You know, she's got one of the more interesting lives that we get to see. But she comes to our attention as a result of the Inquisition documents, as a result of the Church's action against what I like to call the good men and women of Languedoc. I don't like the term Cathar, right? Because I feel like that's what the Church calls them, and I feel like the Church are not great in terms of actually characterizing what we see.

• 8:08Eleanor Janega?

  And Beatrice is important for that story. In order to talk about it, I think we kind of have to begin at the beginning and say, what is Catharism? What is it that the Church says that this group of people that they refer to as the Cathars believe?

• 8:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, so Catharism, as it is known in academic circles now, it's perhaps not what they would have called themselves, as you rightly put. They would have called themselves les bons chrétiens, the good Christians. And they probably saw themselves as a type of Protestant who were trying to get back to the reality of the Christian religion. But they 100% saw themselves as Christians, but they were definitely seen as heretics. And they believed in a very different type of Christianity that was prescribed by the Catholic Church. And it's got roots in the East, in Gnosticism and Bogmalism, and all these different movements that have trickled into Europe through various routes and channels, part of it pilgrimage, part of it crusades, part of it general traveling and migration,

• 9:08Speaker 04

  but at this exchange of ideas and spiritual concepts that is happening in the Middle Ages. And essentially Catharism, the key difference is that they have a very dualistic worldview. So this is the sense that God and the devil are locked in an eternal power struggle, and this affects all things. And then there are parts of life which are sacred and clean, and there are parts of life which are profane and not. And they draw this distinction between these two different spheres in life and these clashing powers of good and evil. And there are two different types of Cathars as well. They divide the followers of this into two camps. One are the Credentes, which are the believers but who have not yet undergone the ritual of consolamentum. And then there are those that have undergone

• 9:53Speaker 04

  this sort of sacred ritual rite of passage, the consolamentum, which turns them into perfets, so les parfaits. Perfects are meant to set a religious example and it wouldn't be practical for every Cathar to be a perfect because they abstain from sexual intercourse, so they die out pretty fast. So most of the followers of the religion are credentis and take the ritual of consolamentum on their deathbeds and become parphes in the last moments of their lives. And this is very important and it's all linked back to Beatrice as well because there's particular things involved with that ritual, which she's caught out on, shall we say. And there are very interesting parts of the religion. It's very sort of, and some people will see it as proto feminist. There's lots of things that Cathars preach that would resonate with with people today.

• 10:37Speaker 04

  For example, they believed that the soul was genderless and they put a lot more emphasis on the importance of the soul than the importance of the body. So with that in mind, they allowed women to become perfects, which were essentially their priests and their spiritual leaders. So that was very progressive and very threatening to the church. Also, they preached early vegetarianism and veganism, again, because they thought you shouldn't be eating meat and killing animals. And again, it was this emphasis on the souls being incarcerated and bodies and so on and so forth. So it was a pretty complicated branch of heresy, but quite forward looking in some ways. But essentially it was an offshoot of Christianity that the Catholic Church and French Crown were quite determined to stamp out during the Middle Ages.

• 11:18Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, and you can kind of see why they would be interested in stamping it out because it does call into question, I think, overarching structures of religion that obviously the church is very interested in in keeping alive. You know, for them, the important thing is always going to be having a final say over how religion is mediated. Who gets to mediate that religion? And I mean, also, yeah, I mean fundamentally dualism is at odds with traditional Catholic teachings. You know, this idea that the physical world is linked more particularly to sin. For example, it's one that is very difficult to get on board with if you're Catholic because the point is that you should sort of be able to overcome that.

• 12:02Eleanor Janega?

  Or indeed, if you can't overcome that, that's fine because it's part of, you know, the the point of being human. And that's, you know, what the church is for, is to mediate that. But I do think that this is a really interesting group of individuals because we see that they tend to be up in these kind of, especially Pyrenean villages. It's sort of like a south eastern kind of block. Could you tell us a little bit about what was going on in the area at the time? Sort of what is it about Montoux that means that these Cathars are about?

• 12:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. So by the time we get to Beatrice's life and Beatrice is born around the 1270s, like maybe roughly 1275, something like that. Catharism has been essentially crushed in the region. So it wasn't that it originated in these mountain villages and was always confined to them. It was actually far more widely spread across southern France, northern Spain, even parts of Italy, northern Italy. It's this sort of belt of southern France, but pretty centered on the Long Dock. But by the time Beatrice is born, the Albergentian Crusade has happened, which is the massive military movement organized partly for religious reasons, but in my view mainly for political ones, earlier in the 12th century to stamp out the Cathar heresy.

• 13:19Speaker 04

  The Albergentian Crusade began in 1209 and gave northern French nobles and monarchy the opportunity to intervene in the Long Dock, which was very popular with them because the South had always been a huge rival to the powers of northern lords and indeed the King of France. They had very powerful dukes in the South who at various points in history were more powerful than the King of France himself. So this was an opportunity to have a legitimate reason to go to war against people in the South. And there were prominent nobles who were Cathars. This wasn't isolated to villages at first. But essentially, the Albergentian Crusade was pretty successful in breaking the power of the South and forcing Catharism, like firstly burning alive many Cathars and slaughtering many more.

• 14:02Speaker 04

  We have this famous massacre at Beziers where the Christians going in to storm Beziers say, oh, but how do we know which ones are Cathars and which aren't? And the leader of that movement says, kill them all because God will know his own. So the massacres are huge and they do succeed in crushing Catharism in the South. And then what we have later in the time, in Beatrice's lifetime, is we have pockets of the heresy surviving in these very remote villages. And these villages are remote. I know this firsthand because I flew into Carcassonne Airport and was trying to drive through Cathar country to visit Montoux and Cassou and these other places important to Beatrice's life. And my car broke down on a Friday night just outside Montoux

• 14:44Speaker 04

  and couldn't be fixed until the Monday, which left me with an unplanned weekend in these mountains. And so I had to walk from village to village and you're talking 10, 15 miles in between each and it was winter. And it was pretty miserable. So I can vouch for the remoteness and difficult accessibility of these villages. And geez, yeah, and that was even with proper footwear and stuff. So it really, the geography was very important because these villages were so small and so remote that they just weren't considered important enough really to be monitoring and sending people to. And they were sort of, they were ecosystems in themselves, technically under authority of the wider lords, but they never sent their men there. It was rare. They were, they were very isolated and left under themselves, nominally under the control of dukes and lords in the region, of course,

• 15:29Speaker 04

  but practically left to their own devices and governed from within, more or less. And this gave the people there a lot of autonomy. And Catharism existed in the shadows and was really passed down within families. It became something passed on, yeah, through kin, marriage, this sort of thing, kept on the down low. And that was possible. These areas were nowhere else because there wasn't a lot of education. They were causing people to discuss it. There weren't people prying into it. They really were left to their own devices. And so in these small places, it could survive without causing too much trouble.

• 16:02Eleanor Janega?

  I think we really see that that tendency, you know, the the fact that this is a strange place with strange interconnected, very tiny communities that you you sort of, you need to want to go there.

• 16:14Speaker 04

  Yes, there has to be a reason. There has to be a reason. And also, it's also at this time, there isn't wide literacy. There's some literacy, but it's priests and notaries who are the literate ones in these villages. And so there isn't a lot of written correspondence flying around full of heretical beliefs. If you really wanted to find out about the presence of Catharism in Montoux, you had to go there and sit people down for a chat, which ultimately is what happens. But if you don't do that and you don't have a specific reason to do that, how would you ever know?

• 16:44Eleanor Janega?

  And I think that this really becomes clear in the case of Beatrice because I think her understanding of what's going on is fair, is fairly muddled. I think that that's a fair thing to say, but I guess we have to kind of introduce Beatrice. Who is she? How does she come to our attention?

• 16:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a really good point. So Beatrice is nobody, but at the same time, she's everything. It's very interesting. So Beatrice is born, yeah, in the 1270s in a village called Cassou, which is a long walk from Montoux, can confirm, long and long walk. And then when she's a teenager, at some point around the age of 16, 17, she marries the chatelet, so the the man who owns the chateau in Montoux. And again, I've been to this chateau. It looks cold and drafty. And that's even if you imagine before it's fallen down, I imagine it's not a fun place, let's just say. It's a very remote village, but she lived in the castle. If you're going to live anywhere in Montoux, you probably want to be in the castle. So she's minor, I really want to emphasize minor, she's mine in ability.

• 17:41Speaker 04

  This is not a woman who doesn't do any labour. This isn't a woman with fleets of handmaidens. Yes, she's one of the wealthier women in her village, but it's a tiny village and it's not a wealthy or comfortable place. She has a marriage to this man called Baron Gerd Rockfor, but this doesn't bring her a lot of protection. Her husband's servants try to rape her while he's away, things like this. She's, she's got a lot of challenges, shall we say, but her marriage is technically successful in that they have children. But then she's left a widow. But essentially she grows up in this town and she's from a family that has been long associated with Catharism. So I think her father and there's evidence of Catharism in her family. And this is actually something that brings her husband's servant, who will try to rape her, brings them intimacy at first

• 18:23Speaker 04

  because he's a secret Cathar and he talks to her about trying to run away with him, not necessarily in a romantic way, but run away with him to join the other Cathars in a different place and to travel with him, to join them. I think it was in northern Italy, he was trying to persuade her to go. So we know she's got Cathar sympathies. I'm not sure I agree with you that she's muddled. I think in the records that we, I'll get to the records, but I think in the records we have of her, she may sound muddled, but I think she might be playing dumb. I think this is a woman who has grown up around these ideas. And I think it's likely she fully understands them and does care actually, because that's my interpretation.

• 18:59Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, I kind of like that. No, I love this idea because it's, it is more fun to think of her as. I suppose more of an active participant in this and saying, oh, I don't know, there just, there were just several men who tried to convince me to run away with them.

• 19:12Speaker 04

  When you look at Beatrice, you feel overwhelmingly sorry for her, but you also feel overwhelmingly sorry for most medieval women, actually. But if we put that aside, I do think she seems quite intentional in lots of ways. And we'll get to that. But anyway, Beatrice comes to our attention. The reason I say while she's nobody, she's also everything and everybody is because Beatrice is one of the best documented women of the Middle Ages alongside Joan of Arc. We talk about the trial of Joan of Arc and how it's phenomenal because Joan is so articulate and they tried to write down everything she said. This is the thing about men who are taking their job seriously. In the case of Joan of Arc, it's because they didn't want to be accused of doing things wrong. So they took the very detailed notes. In the case

• 19:55Speaker 04

  of this inquisition against the cathars, it really comes down to the inquisitor, who's this sort of phenomenal guy. I don't mean in a good way, in terms of, I don't mean phenomenal in that, oh, what a great guy, I'd love to hang out with him. But in terms of his commitment to his job and his fastidiousness is phenomenal. And I think he really believes in what he's doing. And at this point, he, he starts off not necessarily destined for greatness and he ends up pope by the time he's 50. And this is before he's reached that. He's an inquisitor in Southern France. And this is one of the first inquisitions. We, everyone's heard of the Spanish Inquisition. We get used to this idea of interrogating people about their beliefs. But Jacques Fournier really pioneered this. And actually, for medieval inquisitor, another thing to his credit is he used torture sparingly and

• 20:40Speaker 04

  execution sparingly, which I know doesn't sound like a very high bar, but the bar is really on the floor for inquisitors. And anyone that is not actively conducting grotesque violence and legalized murder is actually really good by modern standards for an inquisitor. But, but he interrogates Beatrice and he's very interested in her, not only for herself. I actually think he's not that interested in convicting her of anything. I don't think he's interested in burning her. I, I don't think he sees her as this big problem. He wants to get to a man called Pierre Clegg, who's a real piece of work and Beatrice is involved with him. He really wants her testimony against others who he's very fixed on convicting,

• 21:22Speaker 04

  less on focused on her. And in so doing, he gets her to talk us through her whole life, almost, almost cradle to grave. And she just answers his questions with such frankness. And she gives us images of intimate daily life in a medieval community, not among the ruling classes. It's another reason Joan of Arc is so interesting. She's a peasant who rises to greatness. And then we get glimpses of what her childhood was like. And there are very few documents like this because of illiteracy. Beatrice was never going to sit down and write a journal, but because she was interrogated by this very meticulous inquisitor, we have details about her combing the lice out of her lover's hair in the bath by the window. We have details about what she said to the guy who tried to rape her

• 22:07Speaker 04

  when she kicked him out of bed and screamed for her servants. We have these very intimate snapshots of parts of medieval life. And beyond that, we also, I think you'll probably ask me questions about this later, but we also know the really weird stuff she's got in her handbag. And we also hear about, we hear about her superstitions, we hear about her personal beliefs, we hear about her quite strange methods of birth control. So we get a very intimate portrait of medieval life from a woman who wasn't actually important. And that's very rare. And that's why she stands out as such an interesting figure of the Middle Ages, not because she did anything particularly remarkable, unlike Joan of Arc, but because we have her voice on record so clearly. And we can hear her speaking to

• 22:48Speaker 04

  us and telling her story nearly a thousand years later. And yes, it's under pressure, it's an inquisition, but she still seems to speak with real frankness and not mince words. And it's, it's a very interesting testimony. And that's why she's, that's why she's one of the most, one of my favorite women that I wrote about in my last book about French women.

• 23:08Eleanor Janega?

  She does give us this incredible glimpse into what village life is like, which I think is incredibly important because ordinarily, we hear a lot about people in cities. And we hear a lot about people who are in quite grand castles. But as you say, you know, this is, that's not what this is. And poor Beatrice, you know, sure, she's a member of the nobility. But I think, you know, a member of the merchant class in Paris has more money than Beatrice does. And probably a more comfortable life. I think that that would be fair to say.

• 23:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, definitely more pocket money. I'm not, I don't know the wealth of her husband, but in terms of, yes, day to day, yes. And Beatrice would have been toiling in her own house as well, kind of thing. So, yeah.

• 23:45Eleanor Janega?

  So we see her talking about kind of her village life. And it's interesting because it doesn't reveal this really obvious demarcation between her as a noble person and people in the village, right? Because she's like attending dances, she's working, she's hanging out with ordinary people. And then it seems like things, as you say, become much more perilous for her sort of around 24 years old when her husband dies, right? And, you know, her husband, like, her husband's her job, right? She was married for political reasons, as most members of the nobility are. And it's not like this is something that particularly keeps her up at night. But it does mean that she's left open to

• 24:30Eleanor Janega?

  a lot more sexual coercion, as you say. So can we get a little into the entire situation with Raymond Rousseau?

• 24:41Speaker 04

  Yeah. So Raymond Rousseau is, he's there when her husband's alive. So he's her husband's steward and he's this closet cathar, who tries to persuade Beatrice to run away with him. But they have these dinners, tete, tete. That's because her husband's traveling, he's away, whatever. They're spending time together. And you get the sense of a slightly isolated woman who seems to have a friend, but then she's appalled when he makes sexual advances. And I think he actually hides in her bedroom, is it, in his, like, under her bed. And then she goes to bed and then he climbs in and he's like, shh. And she's like, what on earth are you doing? And he's like, duh, duh, trying to persuade her to sleep with him. And she just starts yelling her head off and says, I will scream, I will get my maids in here. And then eventually she's swayed her not to tell her husband. And then she's, at first she's confused, then she's outraged. And we even have her

• 25:26Speaker 04

  words in the record. She says to Fournier, what does this mean? And he urged me to be quiet. To this I replied, how now, you peasant? Shall I keep quiet then? And started to scream to call her maid servants. So this prompts Raymond to flee and to get out as quickly as possible. And Beatrice really admonishes him, gives him a very severe telling off, which seems very mild, given the circumstances. But, yeah, but she tells him that she won't tell her husband because she doesn't want to escalate things. And that's actually quite sad in itself, because I think one of the reasons she chooses not to escalate this and have this man quite rightly punished for trying to rape her and in being like, behaving the way that he did, is because she's worried that she'll be implicated in terms

• 26:10Speaker 04

  of, we talk about victim blaming today, but it's a whole other thing in the Middle Ages. It's the shame attached. Whether or not you're willing or not, the shame attached to extramarital sex or anything close to it is quite severe in, in some cases. We're going to actually, I think we'll get on to this, but sexual morals are a little bit looser in these Pyrenean villages at this time. But nevertheless, she was worried about how a story like that would reflect on her and how her husband would react towards her as well, so that she agrees to keep it quiet.

• 26:42Eleanor Janega?

  And I think a really interesting point here is, you know, the thing I'm always going on about is how sexual mores in the Middle Ages aren't exactly what people think they are. But they are extant, in particular for women of the nobility. Like, that's who they exist for. You know, if you're a peasant woman, it's sort of like, well, treat yourself. No one's going to be really checking in on it. But especially here, what we're seeing is this differentiation in class. And even if, yeah, Beatrice is a member of the lower nobility, she's not exactly going to be showing up at the royal court any time now. I think her saying, you know, how now, you peasant, it shows that there is this demarcation. And,

• 27:23Eleanor Janega?

  you know, courtly love is one thing. You know, if you are members of the high nobility and you are sort of dating each other behind, you know, the husband's back, that's, that's one thing. It's something else entirely if you're shagging the peasantry, right? And also in particular, I think here, you know, Rousseau's, he's a convicted heretic, right? So it's sort of like, if she brings this up, it's going to shine a light on her own religious beliefs. And she just can't have that. So it's like, she's able to fend Rousseau off, but also it reveals that what she's relying on in order to do it are these really

• 28:06Eleanor Janega?

  nebulous ideas about class and what she can get, like her ladies-in-waiting to kind of help her out with, right?

• 28:16Speaker 04

  So I think what I was saying is interesting. I think truly in these villages, I think the boundaries between class are far more blurred. It's more that she's a married woman and he's her husband's servant, I think is the issue here. And I think her calling him a peasant in this context, we'd have to go back to what the original word she used. But we are looking through three layers of translation, because Beatrice would have said this in Occitan, whatever this word was, which has then been translated into Latin as best it can by Jacques Fournier's A Manuensis, which were then translating from Latin to English. I actually don't have those, like, exactly what words they are. So I wouldn't zoom in too much on the use of the word peasant. But I think what the outrage here is that she's a married woman and that he's her husband's servant and he's meant to be protecting

• 29:00Speaker 04

  her. And he's suddenly crossed this boundary from this sort of spiritual friendship to trying to rape her. So it's a, he's totally misinterpreted because he also clearly didn't think this would happen, right? This is an exercise in self-delusion on his part because he, from what we see, he hasn't come in armed with a knife. He hasn't, like, this isn't the real, he's trying to overpower her. I think he really thinks, otherwise, why else would he do this with her maids within calling distance? So he's really misjudged this.

• 29:27Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, yeah. Like, he thinks he's in. He's like, oh, this is a romantic interlude. Here I am, like, under the bed. And isn't that going to be romantic?

• 29:35Speaker 04

  The Ridley Scott Last Duel film, where the sort of, sort of forced performance by Jodie Comer as a medieval woman who is, who accuses someone of rape. And then we see it from the three perspectives. The guy really thought, didn't see it that way. And I'm sure Raymond Rousseau is laboring under these same delusions. But yeah, we, we definitely see Beatrice's predicament. And this episode shows us something. It shows us the access this man would have had to her rooms. That we think of the, we think of the chateau Laine as being in the tower and very protected. It is not the case. She's got maid servants nearby, but there are no guards. There's very few people protecting her. And the person who's meant to be protecting her, as we see, cannot be trusted at all. So I think we see actually how deconstructed these mountain villages, societies are, and how close they are. The fact that he thought, the fact that he really thought he had a

• 30:19Speaker 04

  chance is actually quite telling, in fact. So yeah, that would be my take on that.

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• 33:20Eleanor Janega?

  I think that it's interesting here because as we see Beatrice's, I don't know, career as a heretic move forward. And I tend to use the term heretic for her because I think, I'm used to looking at it in Latin, and that's the word they use. And she's like, "Yeah, I'm a heretic," which I always thought was pretty refreshing, because she's like, "Yeah, I don't know. You guys don't like this. What do you want me to do?" But she has this initial, really terrifying ordeal with Rouselle. And then the next thing that she picks up on is a totally different relationship with another man who is essentially trying the same thing.

• 34:02Speaker 04

  And again, this highlights the interconnected incestuous, the way these villages function. Because they're very small communities with a few families, kind of thing, and not a lot of diversity. The dating pool is small. And even during, I think even during her marriage to Berengar, she is raped by another man from the village, a guy who was of less repute, shall we say, because I think he's from a noble family in the village, the Clegg family, which we're going to come back to, that's very important. But he's illegitimate. So he's of the Clegg family, but he doesn't have full status, but he is still accepted in the village community. He rapes her, and she describes this as a rape. But then later, following her husband's death, she agrees to become his mistress and seems to enter,

• 34:47Speaker 04

  as far as we can see, into a consensual sexual relationship with him, where he keeps her. So this is where we see these class barriers being more fluid, and also her vulnerability, and also the amount of freedom she had. The idea that she could become a lower-status man's mistress without her father or brothers intervening is quite interesting, or sons by this point. And the fact that this passes in the village, she's not outcast from the community for this. So we see how fluid the morals, the sexual limitations, and the class boundaries are. It's very surprising, I think, to most people to see just how lax things could be in a medieval village. And also, in talking about female agency, we don't know why she chose to start a relationship with this man. She clearly describes the

• 35:32Speaker 04

  first sexual encounter as a rape. Whether or not that's true, because she was still married, and so that's the term she chose to use, it's hard to say. We will never know for certain. But perhaps she really felt forced to enter into this relationship because it was known that they'd had this encounter before, because maybe she's left very financially precarious following her husband's death, maybe she wasn't well provided for. It's hard to know exactly why, but she does seem to become kept as his mistress. And then we come to perhaps the most significant relationship of her life, which is the most surprising, is she eventually leaves him to have a full-blown relationship with his cousin, who is none other than the village priest, which is bizarre. So yeah. And it

• 36:15Speaker 04

  will entertain you to know that when I visited Montailly, nearly 1,000 years later, 800 years, something like that, the mayor of Montailly is still a man from the Clegg family.

• 36:27Eleanor Janega?

  No.

• 36:28Speaker 04

  The Cleggs are still active in Montailly.

• 36:33Eleanor Janega?

  So I'm somewhat obsessed with Clegg the priest, right? Because what I like so much is Beatrice's explanations of basically his pick-up lines to her, because she's like, "Hey, aren't you a priest? And shouldn't we not be having sex, given A, that you're a priest, and B, we're not married?" And I talk about this all the time, when he's like, "Well, actually..." So you might think that, but all sex is sinful, right? Because everything that happens in the world is sinful. And actually, if you really think about it, married sex is more sinful because you think it isn't sinful, and you think that

• 37:17Eleanor Janega?

  it's fine because you're married, but it's not fine. So it's more honest to have an affair with me, your priest, and have sex with me because you know it's sinful. And it's just...

• 37:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:28Eleanor Janega?

  And I'm not even exaggerating. That's literally his argument, at least according to Beatrice.

• 37:34Speaker 04

  Oh, no, absolutely. It's crazy. And the thing that really gets me about their relationship is that he first propositions her while she's making confession to him. So she goes to church and she kneels and goes, "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been, whatever, since my last confession." And he just goes like, "Oh, my God, you're so hot. I must have you."

• 37:55Eleanor Janega?

  I was like, "Oh, girl, are you single? Hey, hey, girl, what's up?" "Oh, because, oh, are you confessing extramarital affairs? Because I could do that."

• 38:02Speaker 04

  I get in on that, yeah. And it's also, she's probably confessing, she's probably also officially confessing her relationship with his own cousin. The whole thing is madness. And she says she's really shocked when he lunges at her and tries to kiss her when she's making confession. And she's just a bit bemused and leaves the church. But then eventually, yes, she makes this argument that they shouldn't have sex, because if you have sex with a priest, apparently it means you will never see the face of God. And then he launches into this whole, "Actually, I know why you're saying that, but it's actually misinterpretation. Actually, it's better to have sex with priests. You'll actually be closer to God," kind of thing, which you've illustrated very well. And then they do end up having a full-blown relationship for years, including he wants to have sex with

• 38:44Speaker 04

  her all the time. And to the extent that he makes a bed for them in secret behind the altar in the church, they can hook up on Christmas Eve between services. This is like the level that we're at. She goes along with it. And they seem to love each other. I mentioned, you talk about these intimate scenes. She describes having chats with him about vaguely philosophical topics while combing the lice out of his hair. They seem to have quite a deep adult relationship at times. But then it eventually ends, and I think he rebounds by having an affair with his teenage cousin. And anyway, she remarries, life goes on. But it's a very interesting interlude. And again, shining a light on actually, that medieval society is not necessarily at all how we see it. And actually, if you look at the records from the whole of the Jacques Fournier Inquisition, I think you

• 39:29Speaker 04

  find out that about 10% of the village of Montailly are in extramarital relationships, or living in sin, as it were. So it's really not, and these are all accepted, so it's really not what you would expect from this period and region.

• 39:43Eleanor Janega?

  And I think that all of this taking place in the church is so interesting as well, because it's a thing that we see repeatedly across the medieval period, is we'll see these injunctions on the part of the church, where they'll say, "Please don't have sex" in the church, over and over again. And we might think that's kind of funny, but actually, it's sort of like a building that's empty a lot of the time. A lot of people don't have privacy. If you are attempting to have an affair...

• 40:11Speaker 04

  And it is cold in the mountains.

• 40:12Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, like you're not going to go outside, right? So it creates this space wherein these illicit affairs can happen, which is kind of ironic, right? Because obviously, we are meant to think of the church as a sacred place. I mean, poor Beatrice, she's in confession, where she's essentially sexually attacked by this man, and which is this incredible inversion of the church's usual role as a place of sanctuary. And it is really difficult to look at. But at the same time, I don't want to tell Beatrice, "Well, no, actually, you shouldn't have had a relationship with this man." Because, as you say, I think that the incredible intimacy and the detail that we get about their relationship shows that something...

• 40:57Eleanor Janega?

  Went on here, right? And also, I think from her standpoint, it's like, you know, here's a woman who married a man much older than her, you know, did the expected thing. And I think that what we see in this particular relationship, the fact that they're having these philosophical discussions, well, at least he's kind of like treating her as someone within intellectual capacity.

• 41:18Speaker 04

  Yeah. And that's why I think she's likely to understand a little bit more. I think the problem for poor Beatrice is that the Catharism as it is fed to her is pretty butchered, right? Because I think she's not literate. So she's not reading like core texts and drawing her own conclusions. Her exposure to the religion that she adopts, or doesn't, as the case may be, is fed through people like Pierre Clegg, who are also using it to further their own sexual agenda and so forth. So she's getting a slut, she is getting a butchered Catharism. But I think this is the hot topic of the time, and people do feel very strongly about it. So even if she's getting it in dribs and drabs, I think she is still being involved in quite serious conversations and does, does grasp a lot. And even if some

• 42:02Speaker 04

  of it is being recast to make her think having sex with a priest is a great idea and so forth, I think some parts of it will be being given to her properly. And that Cathars do care about converting other Cathars and defending their religion. So I think that is, it is likely. And we also see that Pierre does seem to care about Beatrice. It's a bit weird. It's a really, it's a very toxic, weird relationship. And he seems to be a sort of Manson-esque figure in some ways, because he's a very persuasive, charming man, it seems. He's a powerful man in the village, and he has a lot of sexual partners. So when Beatrice dumps him, he doesn't run off with his cousin, actually. I've checked. He has an affair with his teenage niece, and others, and many others in the village. So he's clearly persuasive, and somehow persuades other people in his family in the

• 42:46Speaker 04

  village to allow him access to their female relatives. And these women, they seem to consent in some cases, if not all. But he's, he clearly still has a thing for Beatrice, because even once she's remarried and moves away, he visits her, and he sends her presents. There's this one occasion where, again, we get a nice little glimpse, but he brings her two, two blouses, two nice shirts, two nice tops, in the Barcelona style. So the idea of American GIs bringing blue jeans or whatever, this whole sort of like the sought after fashion. And she has sex with him again, and in her new home, and has her maid stand in the doorway and keep watch while they get it on in the cellar, something like that. So even after they've moved on, she's remarried, he's had sex with numerous

• 43:28Speaker 04

  of the other villagers, including his own relatives, he still seeks her out, and they have some kind of ongoing connection. So it's a weird one. We don't judge. Love is complicated. But there's something that, whatever it is, and whether or not it's a relationship that I think looks healthy or not, they clearly had feelings for each other that lasted over a period of time. And that's what's so funny is at the end of this, when she's being in, under the Inquisition, he's there too, and they're being kept in the same prison. If you wonder, are they passing notes? Do they see each other? Is there break time? We don't know. But it's very, it's a very weird love story, and their lives are deeply intertwined for a very long time.

• 44:03Eleanor Janega?

  I'm really interested in the detail that we get from this particular story within Beatrice's testimony. Because, I mean, really, the Inquisitors have done this incredible job, recording all these little things. And one of the things that I find most intriguing is the whole discussion about contraceptives that they use. Because I get asked a lot about medieval contraceptives, which, you know, contraceptives, not really, is what I would say, you know, abort efficients, they certainly have contraceptives less so. But can we talk a little bit about what Pierre believes to be a contraceptive device, and

• 44:45Eleanor Janega?

  what it tells us about medical knowledge at the time?

• 44:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, like, yes. I think you might be better, I'm going to ask you to correct me on this. My recollection, because I have to say, although I remember obviously laughing and being scandalized at the time, it wasn't that their birth control methods, I didn't write them down for, to come back to. But from what I recall, I think it's some sort of bundle of herbs.

• 45:10Eleanor Janega?

  Yep. No, you're, you're right.

• 45:12Speaker 04

  Bundle of weird, stinky herbs that he asks her to wear as like a weird necklace around her neck, between her breasts, and like maybe over her stomach during intercourse, and that will prevent pregnancy. And then I think she says, oh, can I keep this? Like when they're done? And he says, absolutely not, because it's mine, and I don't want you to use it with other men when I'm not with you, because it's this clearly so effective, useful thing. But hey, like, Eleanor, it worked. So it's like, there's a lot of talk today about the burden being on women and contraception and so forth, and hormonal treatments. But maybe we just need to work out what those herbs were, because it worked. She, as far as we know, Beatrice had lots of children, but she never had Pierre's. So,

• 45:57Eleanor Janega?

  you know, a contraceptive king? I mean, who's to say?

• 46:01Speaker 04

  What does this reveal about medical knowledge at the time? Clearly far more advanced than that. No, I think, yeah, I think if we were to look at it from a scientific perspective, I'd say that Pierre Clegg's views on contraception were probably not the most advanced, and were somewhat primitive and witchy. But it's great to strike that chord, because it can bring us to perhaps the most fun stuff about Beatrice, which is the witchy stuff. So, shall we go there?

• 46:28Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, yes. Can we please? Because I'm sort of obsessed with the witchy stuff, obviously.

• 46:32Speaker 04

  My favorite part of Beatrice's testimony, when Jacques Fournier empties her handbag over the, the desk in the Inquisition room. And I don't know if you've seen those Vogue videos where you get the job of being like, oh, my God, and this is the face mist I use, so I can look fresh on the go, and stuff like that. Beatrice doesn't have a face mist, alas. But she does have equally revealing and useful tips for what a woman should never be without. One is, I think, what's the weirdest one? Is it the, the umbilical cords? Yeah. So she has some things that I think that when I read the description, it makes me think of the chews I give my dog, these long dried out bits of flesh. And Mr. Fournier is like, what's this one? Could you tell us about this object? And she said,

• 47:17Speaker 04

  oh, yeah, those are my grandson's umbilical cords. And I keep them, because a Jewish woman I met told me that if I held on to these, as long as I had them with me, I would never lose a lawsuit. But actually, I haven't been sued, so I don't know if it works. But why not? Just in case. She seemed to know what she was about. And Jacques Fournier doesn't say very much about this. He passes on to the next thing. He says, and what about this? And he gets some sort of brown, dried out bits of cloth. And he's like, what's going on here? I like to imagine he picks them up and then drops it suddenly. He says, what's this? And she says, oh, yeah, those are bits of cloth that I've soaked with my daughter Philippa's blood from her first period. And Philippa's a mother at this point, it's probably a while ago. And he's like, quoi? And she says, oh, yeah, no, I

• 48:00Speaker 04

  kept them. Because again, and I was told that if I use some sort of like a tea bag, if I make it a drink with them, put them in hot water, then give that to Philippa's husband. He'll never be unfaithful to her. I've got that to do that. And Jacques Fournier is like, okay. And then they move through these other objects. And one of them is a small silver knife, and there are various other slightly witchy things. But the thing he then really zooms in on, more than the umbilical cords or the dried blood, he's really not after her as a witch, although he really would have enough to go on here if he were. But what he really focuses in on some bits of bread, which to us, might sound like the most tame thing in there. Oh, yeah, like a sandwich I forgot to eat, just not very good at hygiene, blah, blah, blah. But no, it's the special type of bread

• 48:44Speaker 04

  that is used in the ritual of the Consulamintum. And so it's the fact that she's got sort of Cathar bread on her, is the link that she's a heretic. And she kind of just skates over this. And the records don't show her being really interrogated on this. But we know the fact that it's written there in the list, that they see it as, as evidence against her.

• 49:19Speaker 05

  If you love a good story, why aren't you listening to Dan Snow's History Hit Podcast? It's a show where we tell you every amazing, crazy, and important thing that has ever happened in human history. From the perilous voyages of the first Polynesians, the discoveries of Captain Cook, the deadly Viking raids on Britain and Ireland, the rise and fall of the great English kings and queens. We'll tell you how Waterloo was won, the Alamo was lost, and all the history in between. So make sure you check it out. Dan Snow's History Hit, for the best true stories ever told, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 50:12Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, and I think that this is so incredibly interesting because it does tell us an awful lot about how ordinary people are organizing their lives. And I find the thing about the period blood tea as a love spell to be really interesting because if we look at, you know, a quite famous medieval source, Bouchard de Vermees' Corrector, which is basically, it's a guidebook for priests to hear some things that you can ask at confession. And he has all these quite bizarre love potions within it. And he says, oh, well, you should ask at confession if they're doing these love spells. And it'll be sort of like love spells about putting honey down your body, and then like mixing that with seeds, and then feeding the seeds to your husband in order to make him love

• 50:57Eleanor Janega?

  you, and things like that. And you're sort of like, oh, well, is this real? Or is this the sort of thing that priests who have no idea about sex would make up? And then you have Beatrice be like, ah, yeah, that's the period blood magic. And you're like, oh, wow. Okay. So, so these things are actually real, right?

• 51:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think this is the thing. And it's whether you want to call it witchcraft, superstition, folk magic, old wives tales, this sort of, we'd call it superstition, but this sort of knowledge that's handed down person to person, it's very, it's still very strong at this time. And the education is so weak. And even Christian education, we see the education that you get from the church. Beatrice is case in point, this is the priest who's teaching her, is the one who's trying to seduce her. It's so patchy. And so I think so much, and life is so fragile at these times. People have so little power. They have no ombudsman, and Citizen Advice Bureau, and NGOs, and, and social services

• 51:58Speaker 04

  helping them. Healthcare is pretty much next to non-existent. There's no doctor in Montauil, it's not a thing. It's all, maybe there's an apothecary in a town, maybe there's a nun or a monk who's, who works in the infirmary and has some knowledge. They don't, people don't have the same support structures around them that we take for granted. And I think in that, and so something has to fill a void in terms of advice, or guidance, or like, placebo affects healthcare. So it's there because it's needed. And whether it's presented as witchcraft, or local remedies, or whatever, it's a big part of people's lives. And that they don't have the sort of scientific training that is not developed in its way to question

• 52:39Speaker 04

  it and second guess it. So, yeah, a doctor might pass through very rarely. You're otherwise reliant on apothecaries. And there's, and some of the stuff, some old herbal remedies do stand up scrutiny. Medieval remedies, pain relievers, willow bark, well, that's aspirin, I think. So some of them do stand up scrutiny. And if, and to be honest, as a medieval person, if I had some willow bark tea and it cured my headache, and the same person who gave me the willow bark tea told me to pour honey on myself to avoid pregnancy, to me, as a medieval person, there's no reason why one would work and the other wouldn't. So you, people are more willing to buy into these sort of things. And also, they don't understand how sex works, right? They don't, they don't understand the details yet of sperm and like, all the rest of it. So I think, yeah, that's why. There's a gap, and

• 53:24Speaker 04

  it needs to be filled. And necessity drives invention, so on and so forth. And people need some comfort. So, yeah.

• 53:30Eleanor Janega?

  I mean, I think also, within Beatrice's testimony, you know, we see these gaps in religious information and religious education as well. Because, you know, for example, she goes back to the incredibly well-worn mountain analogy for the conception of transubstantiation. Do you want to talk about this? Because this comes up a lot in heresy trials, kind of across Europe, especially at this time.

• 53:54Speaker 04

  I actually don't want to, because I don't know very much about it. But I'd love, but I would love for you to, Anna, please.

• 53:59Eleanor Janega?

  All right, okay. So there's this thing that she does. So, under questioning, she is asked if she'd ever questioned the concept of transubstantiation. Okay. And so transubstantiation is this idea that during the Mass, the bread and wine that is used for communion is transformed literally into the body and blood of Christ. And then, you know, obviously, you consume it at Eucharist, and it's this, a very meaningful moment. But there's a thing that we see across the Middle Ages come up over and over again, where they're like, ha, ha, ha. Well, if that's literally Jesus's body, his body would have had to have been the size of a mountain. And, and because we're all eating it all

• 54:43Eleanor Janega?

  the time. And it's really an interesting one, because like, obviously, the church is outraged every time they hear it. Because they're like, how dare you misunderstand, you know, what transubstantiation is. And it's sort of like, well, whose fault is that? Right? Because it's, it's a pretty difficult concept, actually, to get your head around. It's something that Protestants reject kind of outright. Eventually, we will see in groups, for example, like the Lollards, they push instead for an idea of like, consubstantiation, which is like, well, it's two things at once. It is bread and wine, and it's also the body and blood of Christ. And you, the Protestant one is like, guys, it's just a metaphor. But Catholics really are saying, no, that's what, that's what it is. And then they get mad if you don't believe it. And it's like, what pastoral care is going on up here in

• 55:27Eleanor Janega?

  order to explain to ordinary people what that is and what that means, right? And then you get mad at Beatrice about it, right?

• 55:34Speaker 04

  They don't get too mad at her. I think she's, ultimately, she's sentenced to wear the yellow cross the rest of her life. But that's fairly light compared to heretics in later periods. And I think they do accept that there's a lack of education. And also, I think it would be very hard for someone like Jacques Fuigné, who is, who's a meticulous person. I think he is a man of conscience. As I, the bar is on the floor, but nevertheless, to the extent, he's, he's a, he's a construction of his environment, he's a medieval man, I'm not defending him. But I think, to the extent that he can be, he's a man of conscience. I think it would be very hard for him to really attack and pillory a woman like Beatrice, whose education has been given to her by someone like Pierre Clegg. And the church

• 56:17Speaker 04

  has clearly failed this woman, right? In terms of education and spiritual guidance and everything. Yeah. So, exactly. I think, yeah, it's, I'm with you. Like, these are reasonable questions to ask. There should be answers given with understanding and in the name of guidance and education, rather than just punishment. But yes, at this time, as we say, the bar is on the floor. But, yeah.

• 56:39Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah. And I mean, I think that what you can say is, in terms of her relationship with the structure of the church overall, you know, obviously, her ex-lovers aside, is the most contact that she has with the structure of the church, the authority of the church, comes, you know, when they essentially arrest her, right? You know, like, here she is, you know, at a point in time, she's like, 46, she has to go on the run with her, her new boyfriend.

• 57:07Speaker 04

  Who is also a priest.

• 57:09Eleanor Janega?

  Who's also a priest, right?

• 57:10Speaker 04

  And much younger, 20, 30 years younger than her.

• 57:12Eleanor Janega?

  I mean, like, so now it's illegal to be a cougar, right?

• 57:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, we have to circle back to this. Beatrice is, she's got something. She's got something. There's, just like Pierre is clearly like a Manson-esque, like persuasive, attractive figure. I think Beatrice is also, I'd love to see them in a movie, is all I can say. Yeah.

• 57:31Eleanor Janega?

  I think she's clearly the village hottie. I think that that, that has to be said, you know, like, she's, she's a target, right? And, you know, so she's 46, she's on the run with her 30-year-old boyfriend. Fantastic. Great work. I love to see it.

• 57:44Speaker 04

  But I think an Orthodox priest at this point is, she's a very flexitarian Christian, is Beatrice. Yeah.

• 57:48Eleanor Janega?

  I think it's, she's just pragmatic, you know? It's just sort of like, well, who cares? And it's like, at this point in time, they know that they are in the sights of the Inquisition, right? And I think Beatrice is probably more of a target for their ire because of her position, you know, and her rank, you know? What do you do? You know, you go and you try to find the most well-connected people.

• 58:12Speaker 04

  I don't think it's rank. I think it's about the fact that they know she can rat out Pierre Clegg. I think they're really after him. So I think that's a big part of it. Yeah.

• 58:20Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah. I mean, it's, it seems to me that you're the village hottie. And you, you have had a series of relationships that we kind of want to get into, right? And so, you know, her first big amount of time with anyone from the church authority is like the series of examinations, and like, really involved, like, basic inquisitorial questionings.

• 58:42Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. And they didn't torture her. But I think it was still a really miserable experience, because it was eight examinations. And I think they took place over quite a wide period of time. And she was in prison in between. And prison would have been lousy. Medieval prison, lousy. Yeah. I think, and she is worn down. By the last interrogation, you can tell she's, she's exhausted, and she's becoming ill, I think, by the last one. So it's, and she's not old by our standards, but she's old for medieval standards. She's a grandmother at this time. I think it is quite tough on her. So, yeah, a very tough process.

• 59:13Eleanor Janega?

  Listen, she's older than me. And if I was put in medieval prison, I too would probably break down, you know?

• 59:19Speaker 04

  All of the world.

• 59:20Eleanor Janega?

  And it's interesting, because, you know, there's these eight different interrogations, as you say. And there's kind of be a mental toll as a result of this, you know, a really difficult thing to keep anything alike, a straight line of narrative going across them, I think.

• 59:38Speaker 04

  And she's afraid. Ultimately, she isn't burned. But people are burned for being heretics. And they have stuff on her. So she's in prison, and possibly living in fear of torture and execution. So the mental toll is profound. Also, she's probably not seeing her children, her grandchildren. She's isolated. We don't know who she's sharing a cell with. We don't know what conditions are like. But she's very much in fear. Yeah.

• 1:00:03Eleanor Janega?

  It's interesting, because she just seems to come to the conclusion that the, the way to go is just total transparency. Because what do you think? Do you think that's what we're seeing here? Or do you think that this is calculated? Because she's obviously very intelligent. If what they're after is Pierre Clegg, right?

• 1:00:23Eleanor Janega?

  Do you think that she's?

• 1:00:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, is she ratting him out? I think she's picking her battles and she's probably trying to give, I think she's probably trying to distract them and give them enough to give them what they want without incriminating herself too much. So I think she's probably accepted. When you go into something like this, not that I've done it, but you have to assess what can you get away with and what can you not get away with? And I think she probably realizes I can't position myself as a good Christian woman who knows nothing about it. I can't position myself as perfectly chaste, an exemplar of society, so on and so forth. But she also probably wants to real, wants to make it clear. She doesn't want to position herself as a Cathar perfect. She may well have been a Cathar perfect.

• 1:01:10Speaker 04

  Women often were. High ranking women in these communities often were perfect. She has consolament and bread in her back. We don't know, but she doesn't want to talk about any of that because that, if it comes out, is really, it could be a death sentence and it could be much more serious. But if she can distract shock or with all the affairs and with all the details about Pierre Clegg and Pierre Clegg's heresy, she tells us the heresies that Pierre Clegg tells her. So she is ratting on him in those moments and she's, a lot of the discussion does focus on him and I think she probably does know that he is their aim because she's tipped off in advance that they're after her. We don't know what that tip off contained. Maybe it was they want you because of Pierre Clegg.

• 1:01:53Speaker 04

  And she and Bart, she and her, her new boyfriend, they flee together, not before having sex again, by the way, in public with the maid, Sandy Watch, as usual.

• 1:02:00Eleanor Janega?

  She's so real for that, you know?

• 1:02:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, but she, but yes, we don't know exactly what she knows, but I think she's trying to give them enough. I think she knows she can't plead total ignorance, but she doesn't want to focus on the heresy. She doesn't want to. And so she gives them enough. Maybe she knows a lot of people are using the mountain metaphor. I think she is tactical in what she chooses to share. I think she's also tired. Even the most composed people, under the pressure of interrogation, they crack and they can ramble on about other things and go off in tense. I think it's, I don't think it's perfectly planned and correct courtroom appearance kind of thing, but I think she is trying to be strategic with what she reveals and what she doesn't. And I think she's quite at peace with selling Pierre Clegg down the river, as she should be at this point. But, but yes, I think that's about that. That's my read on it.

• 1:02:46Speaker 04

  I think she does understand Catharism. I think it's perfectly possible that she was a perfect. We will, we don't know, but I think it's possible. It's also possible she wasn't really a Cathar, but just a sympathizer. We don't know, but I think she was very involved in the movement. I think she did understand the movement, but she's chosen to try and focus on the questions they're asking about Clegg and the village, rather than bring focus on herself and her particularation with Catharism, which she wants to avoid getting into.

• 1:03:12Eleanor Janega?

  I think that it's really quite interesting because fundamentally, her strategy pays off. You know, like you could say it isn't a strategy, it simply is, you know, her being honest or, you know, maybe she simply lived the dream and got her ex-boyfriend in trouble. Yeah, it's kind of a jerk. It's kind of great. But, you know, she, she is released. Uh, you know, Clegg dies in prison, right? He, he doesn't make it out of there. And it's true, she has to wear, you know, the yellow cross. That means that you're a heretic, the, the Quagion. And that is going to mean in theory that your public identity changes, but I don't know, like within this particular social milieu, there's going to be a lot of sympathizers, right? So.

• 1:03:56Speaker 04

  She did spend a year in prison, which I think was probably pretty rubbish as it goes and very stressful and took a toll on her. But yes, she is released and she has the yellow cross. But you're right, Catharism has always, not always, but certainly since the 13th century, slightly before Catharism's been linked to the Long Dock. And there, there are pockets of sympathies. We don't know where she goes after this. We just don't know. We don't know where she goes. The record ends, but there will be pockets of sympathizers around. How enforceable is it that she wears a yellow cross every day? In practice, if she goes to a place where people don't care and there aren't that much government, we don't know. And also it could even have been a badge of pride in some circles. Today, the yellow cross, the Cathar cross is the symbol of the entire region of Occitanie,

• 1:04:41Speaker 04

  which is one of the biggest regions of France. It's very proudly associated with the South and has been for a long time. So you're right, if she found the right place, she could find herself among friends and sympathizers. And to what extent this is a punishment is hard to say. I think it's more the case that whenever she goes to a major town, she has to wear her heretic cape. But I don't think she, I don't think it's a huge day to day punishment in this, in a practical sense. Yeah.

• 1:05:07Eleanor Janega?

  So just to kind of wrap this up, you and I both agree, this, this is one of our favorite women in the medieval period, full stop. And I think what I really love about her is, is her ordinariness, right? She is ordinary in terms of the fact that she isn't this incredibly powerful, wealthy woman, but she's extraordinary in that she does seem to be able to come up against the most difficult bit of the church machine and, and sort of live to tell the tale. She's able to navigate a world where she's constantly facing off, you know, sexual violence, but she's able to kind of pick up new partners here and there.

• 1:05:51Eleanor Janega?

  She moves in ways, eventually, I think, especially in her older years, where she's very clearly making decisions on her own. And we have this great record of it. And, you know, as you say, there are, there are problems with it. We don't necessarily know what it is we're doing with a document like this because you have to attempt to interpret it one way or another, right? But what we definitely see from these documents is that there is, you know, an invisibility about women like this ordinarily. We will never get to know about complex women who are shagging the priest behind the altar

• 1:06:32Eleanor Janega?

  and who are kind of like moving around in rural villages. But it's so sad that when we do get to find out about it, it's in this incredibly hostile source, right?

• 1:06:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, 100%. No, it's, she's fascinating as well. And what I find, and I agree with you, I wish we had some, we do have a few diaries almost of women from the Middle Ages, not diaries, a few, very few, but some, like Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, even, oh, what's the woman who had Margaret of Beverly? I think it's written by her brother, but meant to be in her words. So we do have a few chronicles of medieval women speak, telling their own stories and those are wonderful. But Beatrice, I think that's, yeah, everything you say is true, but we do still get this great portrait of her. And the reason I find her so compelling is because she is like an every woman, right? She's the weird stuff in her bag. She's a mum. She's a mum and a grandma. She's got her grandson's umbilical cord. We can infer maybe she was present at the birth of her grandsons.

• 1:07:29Speaker 04

  Maybe she was delivering her and grandsons. That's amazing. And she has the blood from her daughter for the first period. So she knows she's, she's on hand, talking to her, her daughters about puberty and growing up and love. And she wants her daughter's husband to be faithful to her enough to carry around this horrible blood in her handbag this whole time. So we get these glimpses of her just as, as although yes, she's at the heart of this heretical movement and she's under inquisition and she is having these very strange relationships to the priest, but also it's very parenthood, Gilmore Girls. She's dating her daughter's teacher, her last boyfriend, the priest. He's meant to be teaching her daughters and they get something going on. So there's these very real, relatable part, parts of the human experience and the female

• 1:08:11Speaker 04

  experience, even within this sort of hostile court document that's actually an interrogation. But we get glimpses of, okay, so much is different, but so much is the same. And intimacy and family life and love and grief and vulnerability. It's, yeah, I think that's why Beatrice stands out as so interesting and so compelling as a character, even though yes, she's not important, she doesn't achieve much in her life. It's just that for these glimpses of real life that makes her so interesting.

• 1:08:40Eleanor Janega?

  Catherine, it has been an absolute and unmitigated pleasure to talk to you about her today. Thank you so much for coming on.

• 1:08:47Speaker 04

  Thank you, Eleanor.

• 1:08:48Eleanor Janega?

  My thanks again to the brilliant Catherine Pangone's and thank you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries, including my recent film with Matt Lewis, The Ascent to Power, Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry the Second, as well as ad-free podcasts by signing up at historyhit.com/subscription. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify, where you can leave us comments and suggestions or wherever you get your podcasts. And tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval.

• 1:09:23Speaker 04

  Until next time.

• 1:09:43Speaker 02

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